1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an optical connector including a housing for resiliently contacting a cable holder provided with a pair of lock arms adapted to be connected with a member (hereinafter referred to as "objective member) to be connected.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
A conventional optical connector, as exemplified in FIGS. 7 and 8, includes a connector housing 1, a cable holder 2 reciprocally movably accommodated within the connector housing 1, springs 3 disposed within the connector housing 1 and adapted to bias the cable holder 2 forward so as to expose a front end of the holder from a front end of the housing 1, and a pair of lock arms 4 mounted on the connector housing 1 and adapted to connect with an objective member such as a connector to be connected, etc.
The lock arms 4 are disposed in such a manner as to extend along the longitudinal outer sides of the connector housing 1, in other words, along the longitudinal outer side walls of the connector housing 1 in parallel relation. The lock arms 4 are provided with a retaining claw 5 at each front end portion thereof. By resiliently displacing the arms 4 at their front end portions where the retaining claws 5 are formed, a connected relation with the objective member is canceled, and by restoring the arms outwardly, the connected relation with the objective member is realized once again. The numeral 6 denotes an optical cable which is connected to and held by the cable holder 2. The optical cable 6 is inserted into the cable holder 2 from its rear end such that a core end face of the optical cable 6 exposes from a front end face of the holder 2 in order to facilitate an opposing connection with an optical cable or an optical element of the objective member.
As described above, since the above-mentioned conventional optical connector is designed such that a pair of lock arms are disposed in such a manner as to extend along the longitudinal outer side walls of a connector housing and at a predetermined space from each longitudinal outer side wall of the connector housing in parallel relation so as to permit the lock arms to be resiliently displaced inwardly, it has such a problem as that the optical connector as a whole is prevented from being reduced in size, particularly in the width direction and is obliged to be made large in size.
Further, since the springs are made as long in length as possible from the necessity to provide an easy and smooth operation of the lock arms, the physical strength of the arms is decreased and repeated operations cause the lock arms to be fatigued, thus jeopardizing the connecting function thereof.
Furthermore, since the lock arms are disposed in such a manner as to be spaced apart from the connector housing and extend longitudinally therealong from its rear end connecting portion toward its front end, there arises such a problem as that the lock arms are broken due to impact applied thereto from front when the connector is inserted, dropped, or the like.
The present invention has been accomplished in order to obviate these problems inherent in the conventional optical connectors.